Hidden Depths
by LM
Summary: A G1 tale of adventure, deception, and bravery. Chapter 3: Angel has a problem . . . and it's her sister, Crumpet.
1. Prologue

**Hidden Depths**

_Prologue_

Long afterwards Sealight remained, hanging motionless except the subtle fin-sweeps that kept her upright and the strands of pink mane that wreathed her, coiling and spreading. Far above the midday sun dazzled through the shallows, but here even the dim blue light hinted at opacity, shading rather than highlighting the leaning pillars, the scarred walls. Here, it was always midnight.

No, she decided. No, not midnight. A twilight, foreshadowing further, deeper darkness. Sealight stared down steadily, then pulled her fins to her sides and drifted downward. The sea supported her descent mutely and a strong current presented the scene through a torn curtain of pink as her mane streamed before her eyes. The ruins were, if not peaceful, at least still.

Something caught her eye, a rearing statue whose more intricate carvings had long ago been obliterated by the sea, leaving a pony-shaped crust of barnacles. The pedestal had half sunk into the sand and the statue tilted backwards as a result. The forelegs seemed frozen in the act of churning towards the surface, one leg outstretched and one bent sharply at the knee. The sea pony wrapped her tail around the statues limb to anchor herself as she gazed downward. The long, thin threads of purple caught around the crook of the statue's knee streamed and twisted in the waves. Abruptly they came loose, tumbling away from the ancient sculpture. Sealight watched the strands of delicate purple hair scud away. As though in imitation, she loosed her tail and soared upward, fins spreading and folding rhythmically.

She did not look back. The sea washed away ghosts and regrets.

* * *

The blue pony's reflection stared back at her, superimposed over trailing raindrops and a stormy sky.

"Angel, please."

"Go away.

"We miss you so."

"Right."

"Mother would welcome you back, you know. There wouldn't have to be any mention of your . . . sojourn."

"I'm a grown pony, I can make my own decisions."

"That's the attitude that bought you trouble in the first place!" Hooves clopped on the stone floor and the steel grey sky was overlaid with an echo of Crumpet's face, golden as the sun. The reflection as much as the words prompted Angel to swing round, eyes narrowed.

"I am perfectly content here, thank you very much! I have a, a, a _fulfilling_ job, I'm meeting lots of interesting ponies, and I'm saving up to . . ."

"To what? Buy a boat and sail the miserable seas?" Crumpet cried. _"How_ you can stand it, sister! The stink and the damp and the noise and those awful stallions leering on the piers! Come back to us, come back_ home."_

Angel lifted her chin. "The Waylands are considered a bit of a joke here, _actually._ No king, no queen, cobbled together and freezing cold . . ."

The golden pony made a disdainful sound deep in her throat. "Half the ponies on the street are complaining about their dear queen's decisions. We don't need that nonsense. And we have weather other than rain, at least. It's not healthy for a pony in your condition."

The blue pony's cheeks flamed. "I'm not in any . . ._ condition."_

Crumpet gave an unladylike snort.

"I'm not!" Angel repeated angrily, stamping a hoof.

"Oh, Angel. Why so worried? Mother won't care, I don't care." When no answer came, Crumpet nuzzled her shoulder. "Please, Angel. Tell me all about it."

Angel longed to rest her nose against Crumpet's cheek, spill out the whole story and believe that her big sister would make it better, but she made her self step away with a sigh, "I can't. You wouldn't understand."

Crumpet's nostrils quivered as her tail plumed proudly. "You're such a . . . a silly little pony, Angel!"

Angel squeezed her eyes to shut out the golden pony. "Get out."

"No! I've come miles and miles to this wretched city and if you think I'm leaving now--"

"Get OUT!" Angel bellowed, green eyes snapping open as she flew at her.

Crumpet gave a squeal of anger or despair as she bolted out the door, then caught hold of her senses. She straightened and shook her mane into place. "I'm not leaving without you, Angel." She smiled as though determined to erase the past few minutes with a display of calm and decorum. "I know life is troublesome right now, but we'll get through it. We're family. And nothing's more important than that." Turning, she walked down the hall.

Angel made sure her hoofbeats had faded away before she burst into tears.

* * *

Spirit had not lived in Dream Castle for three hundred eighty-nine years, five months, two weeks, three days, nine hours, and thirty-seven minutes.

He had_ lived _there for a time as well, but his three hundred plus years of nonlife in the castle had taught him far more about it . . . for although Spirit was to some extent a pale earthling with washed out lavender eyes, he was mostly a ghost.

Spirit never understood exactly why he haunted Dream Castle. He hadn't been murdered. He hadn't been betrayed. He hadn't left any soul-consuming yet unfinished tasks. He'd simply gone swimming alone, knocked his head on a rock, and drowned. Maybe his symbol, a wailing ghost, had tempted fate, but then Juniper's symbol had been an evergreen bush and she hadn't sprouted pine needles after her unfortunate topiary accident. More to the point, there'd been plenty of ponies with supernatural markings through the millennia, but he was the only ghost in the castle. Odd, considering its long and bloody history. Sometimes he thought there must be some great, strange destiny laid upon him. But most of the time, he considered his condition an inconvenient fluke.

Centuries ago, when Dream Castle still mourned his passing (though without many tears, as he'd been both quiet and unimportant,) Spirit had believed in his ghostly obligations and had done his best to properly haunt the castle. He'd wailed. He'd moaned. He'd marched straight through the rosy-pink labyrinth of inner walls. But no one ever heard his lamentations, and as for drifting through the walls--well, after walking in on a few situations that made the nonexistent blood rush to his nonexistent cheeks, he'd vowed that he would never invade private bedchambers again, especially at night.

For a time, he'd focused on moving about inanimate objects instead. But it required vast amounts of concentration to move even insignificant items and he soon discovered that ponies believed more readily in a slanting desk than a poltergeist, even after the crow quill pens rolled to the floor for the third or fourth time. Even flying silverware and a suit of armor which, after many hours of minute shifts, overbalanced and toppled to the floor did little to impress ponies who lived with telekinetic unicorns day in and day out.

Finally Spirit had given up, partly because the cacophony of the armor clanging against the tiled floor had unnerved him more than anyone, but mostly because he couldn't see any point in continuing. And so he'd retired to the half-forgotten spires of the castle, an unseen figure drifting down the narrow halls.

Thus Spirit faced death as he had life . . . with no ambitions.

On this particular night (edging towards morning) almost three hundred ninety years after his death, Spirit sat in a long-forgotten attic of the southwest tower, watching the raindrops crawl down the cracked windowpanes. He couldn't feel the drafts that rattled the supporting timbers and stirred the dust, but the night stared in at him through the window, cold and oppressive, and he was feeling lonely.

That was why he wandered, for a change, down the long spiral of steps leading to the main part of the castle.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

The rough wooden stairs made the faintest of creaks as Spirit followed them down, down, down. Soon the claustrophobic passages leading up to the attics, barely wide enough for one pony, expanded into a set of tastefully opulent marble steps. Spirit's hooves landed silently on them, but he could feel or sense their cool slickness. He closed his eyes as he walked through the door at the bottom of the stairs.

The rain continued to splatter against the diamond-shaped window panes comprising each tall window, but a dull glow behind the clouds suggested that a full moon lurked, hidden. Squinting into the darkened hallway, Spirit hoped the moonlight would break through soon to give him some light. But he had only taken a few steps forward when a door creaked open, revealing an unexpected source of illumination.

A shadow humped across the threshold, bringing in a spray of raindrops and a multitude of muffled giggles. Its many legs tiptoed across the tilestone as voices whispered playfully: "Quiet . . . Careful . . . you're stepping on my tail. Shhh!"

A dim glow flickered, revealing a massed group of five baby ponies. The only unicorn, a white baby with light pink hair, was the source of the light, which glowed around her horn.

"Everyone remember the plan?" she asked authoritatively, turning to the others.

A blue colt nodded, spreading out a map drawing crudely in pencil. "We've completed Operation Break In," he said. "Now it's on to Operation Sneak."

"But we didn't break in," objected a lavender pegasus baby, eyes wide. "We just walked in the door."

The other babies regarded her with silent scorn for a moment before returning to the map.

"Where to now, Cuddles?" the unicorn asked.

"Now we sneak through the Glass Desert. And be careful of the cactuses . . . they throw sharp glass spines," he warned.

A earthling filly flipped her pink hair, snickering. "You didn't write down Glass Desert, you wrote down Glass DESSERT! HA ha ha!"

"Oh, be quiet, someone will hear you," the pegasus whispered anxiously.

"Yeah, be quiet, Baby Lickety-Split!"

She stuck out her tongue in reply.

"Hey guys, look, I'm Gingerbread!" With a spoon in her teeth a yellow pegasus with blue hair stuck her head around the corner, where she'd been examining the kitchen, bored of their talk. "No, you can't have a cookie! No, you can't lick the batter! Get out of my haaair!"

They all giggled and snickered.

"Come on," Baby Lickety-Split said. "I can't wait another minute."

"Let's go," Baby Moondancer agreed.

All the baby ponies clattered into the kitchen. Baby Heart Throb came last, looking timidly over her shoulder at the deep shadows that fell across the room. Her breath quickened as she hurried to catch up with the light bobbing around Baby Moondancer's horn.

The babies gathered around a heavy trap door set in the floor. A braided rope was fastened securely to the ring in the center of the trapdoor. Cuddles gripped it in his teeth, tugging and bracing his hooves and being pulled forward every time he pulled. With a giggle, Baby Lickety-Split clomped her jaws around his tail and heaved. The babies froze as the trapdoor opened with a long creak.

When it became clear no adults would storm the kitchen, Cuddles turned an annoyed face to Baby Lickety. "I coulda done it myself.

"Yeah, right!" the lavender earthling said, flipping her hair. "Last one down's a cowardly cat!"

She skipped towards the darkness, but Baby Moondancer already had her hooves on the first step. "I'm the leader so I get to go first," said the unicorn.

"And anyway, she has the light," Baby Bouncy said in a practical voice.

The bowed wooden treads creaked under their hooves as they descended. "Where are we now, Cuddles?" asked the unicorn in a hushed voice

"Going down the Black Mountains . . ." Their shadows flickered on the stone walls, elongated and strange. By the time they reached the bottom they were on tiptoes.

Cuddles stared around, sensing the largeness of the space around them, though all he could see were dimly lit boxes and a faint impression of walls. Something brushed against him and he jumped around, then blew his forelock out of his eyes when he saw what it was. "Stop runnin' into me, Baby Heart Throb."

"But it's s-spooky," she whispered, huddling close to the little group.

"Scaredy," Lickety said loudly, but her tail switched nervously as the darkness around them swallowed her voice.

"Come on," Baby Moondancer said, not quite whispering. "Let's look around." She stepped away from the stairs and the others moved with her, always remaining in the little pool of light.

Shelves loomed above them, retreating into the shadowy ceiling. Fat glass jars squatted in rows, gleaming in the light of Baby Moondancer's horn. The little unicorn reared onto her hind legs, supporting herself on the shelf as her light revealed . . .

"Gumdrops!" Baby Bouncy gasped.

"Cookies!" Baby Lickety-Split cried.

"Cake!" Baby Cuddles gloated.

"Chocolate-covered cherries!" Baby Heart Throb squealed.

"We found the ancient golden treasure." Baby Moondancer grinned and took down the cake, which was protected by a glass cover. "Who's hungry for double chocolate?"

They all were, but soon the temptation of exploration overcame even double chocolate.

"Moondancer, come here, I want to see if these have raisins in 'em or chocolate chips . . ."

"No, come over here, I found another shelf of candy . . ."

"I'm not a lamp," Baby Moondancer grumbled, licking the chocolate icing off her nose as she walked over to the candy shelf Baby Bouncy was tast-testing.

"Nothing over here but boring old flour," Cuddles observed, nosing around a sack before returning to the cookies.

Baby Lickety-Split looked up at a wooden door at the end of the room. "Feel that?" she asked Heart Throb, putting her hoof by the bottom of the door.

Baby Heart Throb imitated her and felt a cool draft streaming from under the door. "It's cold. But why?"

"It means it's where they store all the _ice cream!_" said Lickety with a grin. "Powder makes it stay cold; my mama told me all about it." She stood on her hind legs, pushed the latch open with her nose, and rested her weight against it. It moved only a fraction of an inch. "C'mon, Heart Throb, help me open it."

The pegasus baby accordingly shoved her shoulder against the door, pressing her weight against it and digging her hooves against the smooth dirt floor. Slowly, inch by inch, the door creaked open.

Baby Heart Throb ducked her head and squeezed her eyes closed as a cold draft rolled around them, but Baby Lickety-Split giggled and jumped into the room. "I'm gonna eat ice cream till I'm _sick!"_ she enthused. "You coming?" Without waiting for an answer she trotted into the room. After a moment's hesitation, the pegasus followed her.

A rectangle of faint light fell into the room, but the corners were dark and dim. Still, that didn't stop Baby Lickety-Split, who was already facedown in a vat of cherry vanilla ice cream. Abruptly she raised her head, groaning. "Owwww, I've got an ice cream headache!"

"You ate too fast," giggled Baby Heart Throb, licking a scoop of rainbow sherbert off her hoof.

"Arrrrgh . . ." The earth pony ran in circles, impatient to get rid of the throbbing in her head. "Oof!" The wooden shelves shuddered as she misjudged her path and slammed into them.

Baby Heart Throb's blue eyes widened as the shelves swayed dangerously. "Run!" Both babies scrambled out of the way as cylinders of ice cream crashed to the floor.

When the thuds and crashes had stopped, Baby Heart Throb peered around wildly in the darkness. "Baby Lickety-Split??"

"Aw, heck."

Baby Heart Throb turned quickly and sighed in relief as she saw the other baby's shadowy figure pushing an upturned bucket of ice cream off her head. Suddenly they were both blinded as the room lit up.

"We heard shouts. What happened?" Baby Moondancer asked.

"Are you okay? Gosh, look at this place," said Baby Bouncy, turning in a circle to observe the ice cream splattered all over the floor and the set of shelves lying across the floor.

"Look at _you,"_ added Cuddles as ice cream dribbled through Lickety-Split's hair and down her muzzle.

She licked off her nose and grinned. "Triple fudge ripple." All the babies laughed.

Baby Bouncy flew over to the shelves and started to push them back into a standing position, but when they were halfway off the ground she let them fall, staring intently at the wall. "Hey, look at that."

"Look at what?" Baby Moondancer craned her neck.

"There's an opening in the wall."

"That's not an opening, it's a _secret passage!"_ Cuddles said in excitement. "Boost me up, Moondancer, I want to see it."

"Oof! Cuddles!" Baby Moondancer wrinkled her nose as Cuddles stood with one hoof on her back and one on her head. "You're _heavy!"_

"It _is_ a passage!" Baby Bouncy's voice echoed. "I wonder where it leads."

"Wait for me!" Cuddles jumped for the opening but landed on Baby Moondancer instead.

Baby Heart Throb fluttered up and landed at the edge of the dark opening. It wasn't much, just a dirt passage, but it had definitely been built by someone . . . or something. She jumped in surprise when she saw eyes coming up the passage towards her, but it was just Baby Bouncy.

"Moondancer, can you wink up here? I want to see how far it goes," the yellow baby said.

"Sure I can," the unicorn baby said immediately, trying to forget the strict lectures she'd received from her unicorn teachers about never, never winking if you weren't familiar with an area. She took a deep breath . . . concentrated . . .

"Ow!" Baby Heart Throb almost fell on her nose as Baby Moondancer winked in immediately behind her and stumbled against her.

"Sorry, Heart Throb," the baby unicorn apologized.

"Hey, what about us?" Cuddles called.

"You two stand guard," the baby unicorn said as she started down the tunnel, ignoring the grumbling complaints of the earth ponies.

The passage was tall enough that the babies didn't have to duck, but barely wide enough for the two pegasi to walk side by side. Baby Moondancer led the way around the twists and turns.

"Careful," she warned, slowing down as the passage sloped steeply downward.

Baby Bouncy held out her wings for balance as her hooves skidded, but Baby Heart Throb stayed where she was, ears flicking. "Do . . . do you hear something?"

They were all silent for a moment, listening. Was there a faint scraping sound ahead of them? Their ears strained against the darkness.

"It's just your imagination," Baby Moondancer.

"But I thought I heard--" Baby Heart Throb broke off with a gasp very walls groaned and thumped. "_What was that?"_

"All . . . all old buildings make sounds," Baby Bouncy said, though she had jumped too. "Especially at night."

"The Nursery doesn't. I wish I was there right now."

Moondancer sighed. "Oh, for goodness sake. Go back and wait with Cuddles and Lickety then."

Baby Heart Throb opened her mouth to say she was doing just that . . . then shut it again as she looked over her shoulder. A stretch of darkness loomed between her and the earth ponies. "N-no, I'll go with you. I want to see where the passage goes, too."

"Stop talking like a fraidy, then." Baby Moondancer pawed the floor as she stared at down the passage, her tail flicking from side to side. "You're makin' Bouncy nervous."

They walked on in silence, occasionally crawling under a thick wooden beam spanning the passageway or wiggling through a tangle of pipes protruding through the wall. The air was thick and stale and Baby Heart Throb was just about to suggest once again that they turn back when Baby Moondancer gave a glad cry.

"Here we are!" she proclaimed, galloping eagerly forward towards a shining light as the passage widened into a room.

"Moondancer, look out!" Baby Bouncy grabbed a mouth full of pink tail and barely stopped her friend from skidding over the abrupt drop off. The little white unicorn took a deep breath as she stepped back.

"Wh-what happened to the light?" Baby Heart Throb whispered, the whites of her eyes flashing around the emptiness. Baby Moondancer's horn had dimmed when she'd nearly fallen and the babies could barely see one another by its faint afterglow, let alone their surroundings.

"We don't need it." Baby Moondancer stood up straight despite the trembling of her flanks. "We have a light of our own." She stared defiantly into the darkness as her horn began to glow.

Blood red eyes stared back at her.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"It's not fair," Baby Lickety-Split complained for the thousandth time.

"Just 'cause we don't have dumb ol' horns or dumb ol' wings," Cuddles agreed, kicking a stone as he paced in front of the wall.

Lickety glared up at the entrance that remained so tantalizingly out of reach, though in truth she could hardly distinguish it in the darkness. Now that Baby Moondancer was gone, the weak moonlight filtering down from the trapdoor in the other room was the only illumination. The filly found herself staring longingly towards the shaft of light again, wishing it weren't a million miles away in the other room. A look at Cuddles told her that he had been looking intently towards the exit too. Their eyes glanced away as soon as they met.

_I'M not going to say anything_, Lickety thought. _I'M not going to look like a scaredy-cat. Why doesn't HE say something? Dumb boy!_

Cuddles blew out with one long breath in a frozen cloud, pretending he was a dragon. If he _was_ a dragon, he'd light a fire and warm up his hooves. They should have invited Spike, he thought. "Maybe we should wait for 'em outside," he said.

"Yeah." Lickety-Split was on her hooves at once. "Outside the door, that is," she paused to look back at him. "Not _totally_ outside."

"Yeah. Not _outside_ outside." Cuddles gazed past her at the stairs leading up to the kitchen.

Spirit sighed as both babies sat down outside the freezer room. He was beginning to regret this adventure. It was dark. And cold. Colder than it had been in his tower. So what was the point of coming down? Still . . . he stayed.

Lickety-Split suddenly turned to Cuddles and asked, "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"Nah . . . " Baby Cuddles' shoulders hunched as he sat with his back to the empty doorway. "They're just pretend."

Baby Lickety nodded, staring absently at the stairway. "Baby Cotton Candy saw one, though," she said abruptly. Spirit stood up hopefully.

"She saw a ghost?"

"Uh huh."

"What . . ." The colt pawed the dirt floor with a hoof. "What'd it look like?"

"It had big glowing eyes," Baby Lickety whispered, "and it was draaagging rusty old chains and howling and it had _noooo head--"_ She snuck her hoof around his back to tap his far shoulder, grinning when he jumped.

"AHHH! _Lickety-Split!"_

"Ha ha, gotcha!" she chortled.

Spirit snorted.

"Did you hear that?" Cuddles looked around. "Lickety, listen!! It's comin' from the secret passage!"

Spirit stood in alarm as he heard it—a howling wail that made his skin prickle.

"_It's the ghost!"_ Baby Lickety-Split shrieked just as three baby ponies burst through the passageway in the other room and landed in a tangled heap.

The two earthlings jumped in alarm. "Moondancer, is that you?"

Pulling her leg from under Baby Bouncy, the baby unicorn scrambled to her hooves, not glowing at all. _"Run!"_ she cried, galloping past them.

"Hurry, it's after us!" sobbed Baby Heart Throb. All five babies turned heel, dashing madly towards the stairs. When a white cloud huffed up from the floor, they all screamed and dodged. Side-slamming a barrel of apples barely slowed Baby Cuddles down, but Baby Moondancer was the first to reach the stairs, taking them two at a time as she ran up.

Spirit's retreat was more measured. He watched the babies run, watched Baby Bouncy trip over a bag of flour, watched the five ponies stream up the stairs. Then he turned and entered the ice cream room.

Nothing had changed.

Leaning his hooves against the wall, he could just stretch his neck far enough to peek into the tunnel. Darkness. No wailing.

It must have been the babies' imagination, he concluded as he slowly turned towards the doorway. There wasn't anything but dirt and darkness in that passage, there wasn't any . . .

_But then what was that sound?_

Suddenly he froze. His ears swiveled backwards.

Slowly, he turned to stare at the square of empty space.

It wasn't a howl.

It wasn't even a voice.

Just the faintest suggestion of something hard scraping against rock or dirt. Scritch, scritch, scritch. Faint. Scritch, scritch, scritch. Distant. Scritch, scritch, scritch. Closer . . .

Spirit turned and ran for the stairs.

The babies' screams had not gone unnoticed; hooves clattered and anxious calls echoed through the halls. Spirit checked his flight as he reached the trapdoor at the top of the stairs; danger seemed farther away with lamplight and unicorns flooding the clean, bright kitchen. Several adults were gathered, trying to comfort the babies and make sense of what had frightened them.

"It was a spider!" wailed Baby Heart Throb to a bemused Powder. "A huge, hairy spider!"

"Nuh uh, it was a huge bat with huge fangs and it got _this close_," Baby Moondancer held her front hooves four inches apart, "and I could feel its wings flapping!"

"It was a snake," Baby Bouncy shouted, jumping up and down. "Like a boa, or maybe a cobra!"

"It was a GHOST and I SAW it!" cried Baby Lickety-Split.

"A ghost?" An adult version of Baby Lickety-Split stood framed in the doorway of the kitchen, frowning. "What's this about a ghost? And _what_ are you doing out of the Nursery at this time of night?"

The foals fell into an awkward silence, then all started talking at once.

"We were just gonna . . ."

"We didn't mean to . . ."

"Just explorin' . . ."

"What's going on?" Gingerbread asked, stepping into the kitchen with a yawn. Halfway through her yawn her glittering eyes caught sight of the open trapdoor and her jaw dropped further. _"Were you down there?"_

"Sorta," Baby Bouncy admitted.

Gingerbread shot down the trapdoor so quickly that Spirit didn't have a chance to get out of the way. He winced at the unpleasant sensation and backed down the stairs to avoid the other ponies starting down.

"Oh my goodness!" Treble Clef's eyes grew wide as the glowing rainbow swirling from her horn lit the sweets and half-eaten cookies scattered across the floor.

Gingerbread gasped, rocking back on her haunches as she clapped her hooves to either side of her face. "My pantry! My precious pantry!!"

Meanwhile, Lickety-Split was marching down the stairs with her daughter reluctantly following, dragging her hooves. "Now, you show me exactly where this 'ghost' was," the lavender mare said.

Baby Lickety-Split poked out her lip. "I dunno, I was busy running. Running for my _life."_

Her mother was unimpressed. "Then show me _approximately_ where it was."

"I guess maybe I didn't get a good look at it." Baby Lickety-Split kicked a gumdrop across the floor. "It was in the . . ."

"In the what?"

"In the secret passage." Baby Lickety suppressed a sigh as she pointed towards the freezer room.

Lickety-Split stepped into the smaller room, clucking her tongue at the open canisters of ice cream. "Look at this place! I suppose this is your 'secret passage.'"

"No, it's—" The baby pony's eyes widened as they flitted over to the wall. "It's gone! It . . . it was right here, behind this--"

"Baby Lickety-Split, you're letting your imagination run away with you," her mother scolded, looking around the small room. "I'm very disappointed in you. You know better than to . . ." She strode out as her foal, still over her shoulder gaping at the blank wall, followed.

Spirit stayed behind, staring hard. The wall stood blankly before him. Flip, flip, his tail switched from side to side, brushing his ankles. With a sudden burst of speed he galloped and leapt, his hind legs rocketing him forward towards the featureless plaster.

An odd feeling swept over him as the wall rushed through his body, a squeamish unpleastantness, but in an instant it had passed and he was in the secret passage.

And he couldn't see a thing.

This was partly because, with the passage blocked, no light filtered in and partly because Spirit was so tall that his head was stuck through the beams supporting the ceiling of the tunnel. He lowered his neck, less for visibility than to rid himself of the itchy, grainy feeling of the wood. After a moment, he started walking.

He navigated the first corner perfectly, started drifting to the left, and ended up stuck in the wall.

"Ponyfeathers," he muttered, backing out and shaking his mane into place (not that it had been ruffled in the first place.) "This darkness makes it impossible—" He broke off abruptly. It was _not_ dark, or at least not totally dark; a faint stain of light splayed around the corner from the direction he had entered. Spirit slowly stuck his head around the corner.

The dark sides of the tunnel framed a patch of light. The entrance was open once again.

Spirit retraced his steps, keeping his body and his head low to get a better view. Someone had set the metal rack of shelves back on its feet and stacked cylinders of ice cream on the top shelves, blocking the entrance from view, but the light leaked around the canisters, bright compared to the midnight of the passageway. The ghost snuffled at the edge of the opening, searching for a trap door or a hidden spring, but if there were any significant grooves in the walls or secret switches, he didn't find them.

Deep in thought, he jumped to the floor . . . and almost landed on a cat.

A giant cat. A giant cat _lady._

Having been open so long the room had lost some of its chill, and in any case the brown-furred feline didn't seem to notice the temperature as she crouched behind several large crates. The dark green reptillian creature beside her shivered, though.

"Catrina, I don't think this is such a good idea."

"I know what I'm doing." The cat's green eyes continued to stare over the edge of the crate.

"We'll get in trouble," Rep insisted. "It's not worth it, stirring everything up again. We have a good life here—"

Catrina's red mane of hair whipped as she hissed, "We have no life here. We're living _their_ lives! Sleeping in their castle, eating their food, playing their games, being _grateful . . ."_

"Are you saying we shouldn't be?" Rep asked incredulously. "Considering we stole the Rainbow of Light and kidnapped a baby pony--"

Her tail lashed from side to side. "You always bring that up. I'm sick of hearing about it."

"All I'm saying is that I don't see the point in it." He was silent for a minute. "I thought you'd changed after the witchweed. I really did."

"And I _hoped_ you would," she snapped. "You're always living in the past. Think of the future for once!"

"The way things are going, we may not have one," Rep muttered, leaning his elbows on a crate.

"Shhhh! Get down," Catrina hissed, pulling him to the floor as Sunbeam, a blue unicorn, and Wedding Veil, a graceful white earth pony, walked past the door. As Wedding Veil paused in the doorway, Rep flattened himself to the floor and Catrina crouched, one green eye peering between the narrow gap between two boxes. They held their breath as the white pony glanced around the room, ears twitching, but after a moment she shook her head with a giggle and trotted off to rejoin Sunbeam.

Catrina relaxed. "That was close."

"Too close," said Rep. "Catrina--"

"Spare me your lectures, Rep. We're going to do this. We're going to do it or die trying."

"That," Rep sighed, "is what I'm afraid of."


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Somewhere between midnight and three AM, Angel's movements became mechanical. She took orders with drooping eyelids and miraculously managed to fill the tankards, dodge around patrons, and bang the drinks on the table so that the froth slopped over the rim, all the while in a thoughtless haze.

In her more self-aware moments, she congratulated herself for achieving this level of detachment; it was almost like she wasn't working at all. Of course, her method had its drawbacks . . .

"Angel. Angel? . . . Hey _Angel!"_

"Wha . . . what?" The blue earth pony rose from her stupor with a jerk, knocking over the tankard she'd been filling. "Oh Spicy, look what you made me do!"

"Daydreaming again? Cooo-ey, your head's always in the clouds." Spicy didn't look perturbed in the least, grinning around the handle of a fresh tankard before tossing it to Angel. "You got a visitor."

"A visitor? Is he—" Angel bit her tongue.

"It ain't a he at all. You got a beau, dearie? We was all hoping so, what with . . ." She let the sentence trail expectantly and look mildly disappointed when Angel didn't answer. "Well, aaaanyways, it's a she and she's all gold, like."

"Oh _no!"_ Angel put her hoof over her eyes in despair. "Not Crumpet!"

"Is she a bill collector? I had one of thems after me once; took all my jewelry, she did. But I got her back. Paid a gang of kids to throw fish heads at her. Every time she stepped outside, for a month!" Spicy sighed happily at the memory. "So don't fuddle your head about it, Angel, a word with Trunk will soon fix Little Miss Yellow."

"NO!" Angel swung her hindquarter around to block Spicy before she could go jaunting up to the bouncer. "No, no, she's my sister, you see."

"Ehhh . . ." The mare tossed her pink hair. "I wouldn't mind setting 'im on some of _my_ relations and that's a fact. But whatever you want."

"Right. Well." Angel gulped. "I'll go talk to her."

"All right, then." Spicy shook her head as she watched Angel walk across the room.

Crumpet was sitting ramrod straight at a table in the most private corner of the room, which happened to be the one farthest from the bar. Angel slipped into the seat opposite without a word.

"_So."_ Crumpet broke the silence with a frigid glare. "It appears you work in this . . . this . . . _place."_ Her gold eyes leveled_. "Not,_ as you told me, at a boutique."

"I didn't want you to worry." Angel's voice held both apology and anger. "And it was none of your business!"

"It IS my business, you're my sister! And worry I shall when you work in rundown bar with ponies like _those."_ She pointed at a crew of Clydesdales, smudged with grease and dirt, singing a rowdy song.

"They look rough, but most of them are decent ponies, really," Angel argued, praying that Crumpet wouldn't be able to discern the sea shanty's bawdy lyrics. "And if anyone acts up, Trunk tosses them out on their tail."

"Trunk? You mean _him?"_ Crumpet stared disapprovingly at the heavy-browed, muscle-bound Clydesdale standing by the door and staring into space. "That brute works here?"

"Crumpet! Be quiet, he'll hear you!" Angel hissed, cheeks flaming. "He's nice. A family pony."

"A family of what, rats?" Crumpet asked drily, staring at a devilish looking rat tattoo on Trunk's shoulder. "Angel, this is no place for you! Especially in your condition!"

"And what condition," Angel ground out, "might THAT be, sister?"

"She means 'cause you're preggers, dearie!"

"What the—" Angel whipped around to find a familiar purple pony scrubbing a table with a wet rag. "SPICY!"

"Oh my, how embarrassing! I couldn't help overhearing," Spicy said, not chagrined in the least. "So this is your sis, is it?"

"Angel, who is this pony?" Crumpet asked stonily.

The blue pony sighed. "Spicy, this is my sister Crumpet. Crumpet, this is my friend Spicy."

"Nice 'n Spicy's my full nom-en-cla-ture," she said, tossing her pink mane back, "but between you and me, I ain't always so nice."

Crumpet's golden eyes narrowed just a fraction. "Well, well."

Either Spicy didn't notice Crumpet's disapproval or she didn't care. In any case, she plopped down on a chair, crossing her forelegs on the table. "You don't have to worry about Angel here, we take care of our own. 'Sides, Cranberry stayed while she was in the family way. Thought she was going to have it right on the floor, I did."

"Really!" Crumpet gasped. Spicy apparently took this as an exclamation of disbelief rather than dismay because she nodded energetically.

"Oh yes! She looked just like a watermelon by the end of it. My, my."

"Spicy . . ." Angel said in a meaningful way.

"Ah, you're wanting some private talk with your sis. I get you. It's time I was serving up another round to that bunch by the tap anyway." She hurried away to tend to a group of ponies who'd emptied their cups.

Crumpet arched her eyebrow at her sister.

"I know she's . . . well . . . brash," Angel admitted. "But she's a nice pony, truly."

"Hmph. First 'Trunk' is nice, now 'Spicy' is nice." Crumpet's eyes widened as they flicked between Trunk and Angel. "Oh Angel, it's not him, is it?"

"What do you--? Crumpet! Of course not!"

Her sister's gold cheeks colored slightly. "Well, how am I supposed to know? You said he was . . ."

"A family pony, if you'll recall. With a mate and a little foal," Angel snapped. "And besides, he's—well, not that there's anything wrong with him, but he's not . . ."

"Not our kind of pony." Crumpet nodded briskly. "And I'm glad you realize it. But I do wish, dear," she hurried on as Angel's face darkened, "that you would just tell me . . . you know . . ."

"Who the father is?" Angel asked drily.

"Angel!" Crumpet leaned forward, voice dropping to a whisper. "There's no need to _say it_ like that."

Angel let her head thump forward onto the table. "Stress is bad for pregnant ponies, you know."

"I just worry about you. You could've had just a nice future, married Twist or Hippity—oh, stop making that face, they're nice boys—but instead you go gallivanting off who-knows-where doing who-knows-what for ages and ages. And there we were at home not knowing if you were alive or dead . . ."

"I'm sorry I didn't keep in touch, it's just . . ." Angel pushed her curly forelock out of her eyes. "There was no way to get messages back to the Waylands. Everywhere I went was too remote or too far away."

"You were too far away."

"Oh Crumpet." Angel sighed. "I wanted to live my own life. See things. Do things. There are islands where the lava flows like a river right into the sea, there are forest full of birds that talk, there are ponies with eyes like jewels—oh, what's the point? You'll never understand."

"I'm sure you saw things I never shall." Crumpet's chair scraped back as she stood. "For that I envy you. But look where you are now. Was it worth it, Angel?"

Angel waited until her sister left before whispering, "I don't know."


End file.
